It's My Life

[paul]

Talk Talk - It's My Life
OK, so I'm staring to fall in love with this song again. I don't know if y'all have talked about this but I also heard some artist named Gwen Stefani has covered this song. Is it any good?

[Videoskooter]

It's gotten the standard No-Doubt-treatment-more rock-reggae-madness-esque.

It's a good cover, worth listening to but it doesn't match the original which has an incredible dreamy vibe.

[paul]

Thanks Videoskooter and presumably Bernie. I won't buy the newer cover version.

[markydefad]

Talk Talk - It's My Life
OK, so I'm staring to fall in love with this song again. I don't know if y'all have talked about this but I also heard some artist named Gwen Stefani has covered this song. Is it any good?

Oh Paul, Paul Paul....
where you been, boy???? Check the next page of this damn section for a thread I started on this subject last October!!!! I really like the cover version; it was refreshing to hear something on the radio with some class.

Gawd bless Gwen Stefani!!!

[paul]

Talk Talk - It's My Life
OK, so I'm staring to fall in love with this song again. I don't know if y'all have talked about this but I also heard some artist named Gwen Stefani has covered this song. Is it any good?

Oh Paul, Paul Paul....
where you been, boy???? Check the next page of this damn section for a thread I started on this subject last October!!!! I really like the cover version; it was refreshing to hear something on the radio with some class.

Gawd bless Gwen Stefani!!!

Hey Marky, why am I not surprised you were the one who had this topic a while ago :lol:
Anyway I guess you like Gwen's cover. I just ordered the extended version of the original song. I think I might have heard Gwen's version but I'll have to hear more of it to make up my mind.

[BrunoRepublic]

I just ordered the extended version of the original song.

The US or UK mix? The US is vastly superior (basically same as the album version, but longer) whereas the UK is one of those messed-up, awkward, stripped-down, randomly-hitting-the-track-mute-buttons-on-the-mixing-desk affairs. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be easier to find today.

[paul]

Oh-oh :o :oops: :x
I'm afraid it's UK. I think the label was EMI. Hey Graham, is the one Bernie linked the US version? Do you have both?

[Bernie]

is the one Bernie linked the US version?

Yes, US pressing.

[BrunoRepublic]

Oh-oh :o :oops: :x
I'm afraid it's UK. I think the label was EMI. Hey Graham, is the one Bernie linked the US version? Do you have both?

At the moment I only have the UK one. I had the US one on a Canadian retro compilation CD, but I loaned it to a friend and haven't seen it since. :x

[markydefad]

I've never found the U.S. pressing. So it's not a remixed track totally replacing all the original elements with house/techno crap???? :o :o :o

An extended version of the original??? "An Enhanced /Definitive VERSION???? Like in the olden days??????

I have to lay down;I think I have the vapors. Get me my smelling salts, Prissy!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

[markydefad]

What about the remix of my most favorite record of recent years, No Doubt's...Hella Good????? I could never find that one either. But, I assumed that "they" would have "deconstructed" it to a dancefloor turd. Anyone know the awful truth???? :o

[BrunoRepublic]

I've never found the U.S. pressing. So it's not a remixed track totally replacing all the original elements with house/techno crap???? :o :o :o

An extended version of the original??? "An Enhanced /Definitive VERSION???? Like in the olden days??????

We're talking about the Talk Talk version, right? I thought that 1984 was considered the olden days... deconstructionist remixes weren't common then...

[markydefad]

No Graham, I thought you were talking about the No Doubt version. Of course, I have the 12" mix of Talk Talk's "It's My Life. One of my most prized possessions!!! :D

[Videoskooter]

What about the remix of my most favorite record of recent years, No Doubt's...Hella Good????? I could never find that one either. But, I assumed that "they" would have "deconstructed" it to a dancefloor turd. Anyone know the awful truth???? :o

Cherish the original "Hella good" which I think is their best song till now.

But stay away from the remix! A few miles will do the trick :D

[QUINNY]

deconstructionist remixes weren't common then...

Graham: Weren't nearly all 12" mixes deconstructions? All they have ever been (in 99% of cases) are loops of things with instruments removed or accentuated and then re-edited. If that's not a deconstruction, then I don't know what is.
I agree that today, the deconstrction has taken a more severe route.

[BrunoRepublic]

Graham: Weren't nearly all 12" mixes deconstructions? All they have ever been (in 99% of cases) are loops of things with instruments removed or accentuated and then re-edited. If that's not a deconstruction, then I don't know what is.
I agree that today, the deconstrction has taken a more severe route.

Strictly speaking, yes... although some 12s are simply longer versions (7/LP versions fade sooner or are edits, as opposed to 12s being extensions). But the term "remix" is so meaningless these days... I was referring to the current practice of removing 98% of the elements of the original song and making something almost completely unrecognizable. If Talk Talk's version of "It's My Life" was remixed today, they'd probably only keep something like the line "I'd pay to lose" and repeat that endlessly over a bass-heavy 909 rhythm.

[markydefad]

Once upon a time in tha "Olden Days"...

a good 3 &1/2 minute radio record could be extended using the intrumental track and maybe adding some new percussive elements into a "Definitive" version of the track-- not sacrificing any of the charms of the original just "ENCHANCING" them into a more PERFECT record. :D :D :D

Case in point, Tom Moulton's extension of a 3+ minute "Make Me Believe In You" by Patti Jo into a smashing 6:34 version that just kills on the dancefloor. :D :D :D

This was the norm--"Enhancement"--til somewhere in the mid-80s---Remixers appointed themselves "artists" and started to radically rework (DECONSTRUCT) all the elements of a track--eliminating everything except "some" of the vocals. Most of these guys were knob-turners-- NOT musicians. They could program synths & drum macnines...not compose music. They were allowed to ruin many records in the process. They got rich. We stopped listening, buying and caring. :evil: :evil: :evil:

[QUINNY]

Marky: Maybe the better 12" were as you describe, but most of them are de-constructions.
Quite often you can hear either some crosstalk (spillage from an adjacent track, where they used to record at such hot levels) or extraneous noises where either faders weren't completely closed or maybe tracks were still being fed to an FX device via the auxillary bus. Most 12" releases were simply the choruses and/or verses stripped down to bare essentials as an intro and with added percussion for the breaks. Listen closely (as I do) and you can hear a multitude of, what would nowadays be, dodgy edits too. Very few records were played from beginning to end (but some most definitely were) and very few didn't have edits galore. As we know, many of the early 12" were 'blends' of two masters or two records (acetates?) and so would have ended up as true verse chorus extensions and amalgams, but very little after 1976/7 would have been done that way.

De-construction did not begin in 1983/4/5....no way.

[markydefad]

"Deconstruction" (the breakdown) to a bassline and a beat is cool: Case in point the terrific breakdown by Steve Thompson & Michael Barbiero of Talk Talk's 1984 "It's My Life". KILLER on the dance floor. I always loved it when they broke it down to just the beat and added the other elements back, one by one. :D

The "deconstruction" I'm talking about is throwing away ALL the elements of a record and making it over totally from scratch. I've read Junior Vasquez state that for his remixes all that's provided by the record company is a vocal track of the original tune. He then "composes" the remix.

This is the "deconstruction" of a tune I find so vile. It's the original song in name only. The music is gone. :evil: :evil: :evil:

[markydefad]

Maybe I'm using the wrong "term" (i.e. "deconstruction"). I have nothing against "edits"--we loved the bedroom "edits" Bobby Viterelli did to breathe fresh life into stale records at the Troc. I'm talking a radical revisionist reworking...not "edits".

Maybe I should say late 1980s--1990s, in terms of time period. I recall buying a Bette Midler 12" of a song i'd heard (something about "Moonlight"), circa 1989, and they'd "grafted" a Soul II Soul-type beat onto it and I thought "Oh, no-- this is just WRONG"!!!!


"look what they've done to my songs-- MAAAAAAAAAA!!! :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:
And I've never been the same. :P :P :P

[markydefad]

OK, the year was 1990. The year EVERYTHING in music started to go WRONG!!!!

Bette Midler's "Moonlight Dancing" 12". Played it once, vomited and filed it away. :evil: :evil: :evil:

I never thought it would happen to me. I always enjoyed all types of music. But, now in retrospect 14 years later, that music was better than 98% of what's coming out today!!! Except for the occasional discovery like Scissor Sisters, Maroon 5, Jet, Franz Ferdinand, and the classy perennials like Diana Krall & Annie Lennox...it's all about the OLDIES at my house nowadays.

[markydefad]

Another DARK signpost that it was all over for me....

the smash hit remix of Tori Amos' "Professional Widow" wherein the phrase "gotta be big" was repeated 500 times. Wut? :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

This, I thought, is a SONG??? People want to dance ...to THIS???

Have the Pod People taken over??? Did I miss the orientation meeting??? What's happened??? The loonies are running the asylum!!!!

I'm checkin' out ...goom-bye.

[markydefad]

P.S. Yes, it's slow in Hollywood today. Haven't ya noticed?? Of maybe I just don't give a **** today??? :o

[QUINNY]

Marky: A couple of posts from me and ya go mad on us !?!?!?
I thought you were made of sterner stuff. :lol: :lol: :lol:

I hear what you're saying. Just wanted to make anyone reading this aware that de-construction started with the disco 12" in or around 1976. (dance) Music hasn't been the same since, so we only have ourselves to blame.

[markydefad]

oh but Keem-o-sabee, (think Tonto!!!) :oops:

Deconstruction before 1989--Good

After 1989--BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.